Endangered: A Vermin Memoir
by Traxer
Summary: The life and times of a weasel, Rueben, a clerk for a classic vermin horde, and his observations on the way into madness. Update: Northern Interlude.
1. Part One: Kithood

_Author's Note: This has been a work-in-progress for a good while, and only now have I finally decided to post it here. This is basically a tale told by a weasel. I'll let you find out the rest. Save travels!_

_Endangered_

**Part One: Kithood**

In the depleting light, I know not why I write this down. The time has passed for words to have meaning or to settle my troubled thoughts. Yet my paw continues to write along the parchment, unable to be to stopped.

There is no point to what I say; I am not even supposed to have the ability to write. It is strange for some to consider that a weasel like myself would have the talent of writing. Vermin are only to have ability to deal pain and suffering as they ravage the countryside. We were not meant to have thoughts and opinions.

Perhaps that is true. Thoughts have only brought me to despair, and opinion has only caused disaster.

I know that I grew up with reading; I vaguely remember my ma, snuggling me in her lap, reading through a tattered parchment. They were bloody and violent tales, those suited for a weasel kit. I liked listening to her voice, though it is now only a tinny echo in my memory now. My eyes soon began to follow the words along with the voice, cuddling closer to her warm tawny-furred stomach. She licked me behind the ears to make me giggle. I wrote soon after, before memories began to form fully, when that vixen seer was speaking to my ma, saying I held a certain talent with the quill. As she spoke I played with the nice sensation of the new quill in my paws, made out of an eagle's feather, a gift from the vixen. I do not remember the vixen's name. I do know that it was she who taught me, chided me on spelling, lectured me on style, and edited my words with an unrelenting force. My weaselbabe mind did not make sense of all her advice. I stored the tips away until they did.

So I grew in my talents of reading and writing, though made sure not to bring attention to it. In the tough nature of vermin kit games, such talents could mar a suitable reputation. It made no difference; I was an average beast when it came fighting. Coming up with devious ideas was my strength.

Hordelife for a kit is a maze of possibilities, many outlets for our dark humor and naughty plans. The times were blissful and sweet, our transgressions rewarded by a pat on the head. Any bad action short of injury or murder was taken as a sign that we were developing properly, that we had more chance to survive hordelife in the future. My father, Jarvik, showed worry at my apparent lack of fierceness, though through my scheming he grew a certain respect for me.

"Anybeast can decapitate another beast," I remember him saying. "With brains, decapitation is only one choice of infinite possibility." I can't be sure if that was a quote from him. My memory says it is and that's good enough for me. He left on a raid against an otter holt soon after and never returned; I don't think I ever questioned where he had gone. The same thing had happened to my ma. I thought of them occasionally, but never wondered when they would return.

Such losses of close family came as normal in hordelife and we all lived with it, not mulling over the loss, just pulling fellow hordebeasts closer, as extended family beasts.

Growing up was a blur of activity, from one scheme to the next, more extensive and risky as we grew older and more experienced. From messing with the armory, causing various heads to almost come detached, to messing with the mess tent food, reducing half the horde to retching in the bushes. Even if we were caught, no repercussions were made, only a semi-formal evaluation of the ingenious nature of our project. A few, I heard rumored later on, were used for traps in certain raids.

We were vermin kits, this was our education; until one day when a horrible thought came to my mind.

"What if some goodbeasts attacked?" I asked my friends.

"Pah, dey wouldn't 'tack us, unless we 'ad some prisnoors or sometin'," Hock, a rat, muttered.

"What if they came without reason?"

"Loik a surpise attack?"

"Yeah, like that. How would everybeast react?"

My friends's interest was piqued This situation had not been dwelled upon; the possibilities of the situation were irresistible. We quickly set out a plan of what we would do.

The plan went right; the reaction did not come as expected.

In the opening moments of dawn, we stole to the edge of camp, pans and broken weapons in our small paws. This was a possibility of mischief that was beyond our imagination.

Madness erupted from all corners of the camp. Yelling, screaming, weapons flailing, beasts running in all directions, confusion, fury, anger: an overwhelming panic that infected everybeast.

I had never been so scared in my young life.

My friends disappeared into the mass of beasts. I just stood there watching, as the madness faded, as the anger began, as the short debate took place, as I was pointed out. A

paw roughly took me and dragged me to the center of camp, to the tent where our feared hordeleader dwelled: feared for his unpredictable temper, feared for his bloodlust in battle, feared for his soul-shearing gaze.

Not feared by the younger beasts who regularly played pranks on him, Levit took it all in stride, from the dye incident on his tail to the time we set his cape on fire. Those times were different from this prank. This was beyond those. We had done something wrong beyond our imagination. I was the culprit and I had no idea what was coming. The beasts that brought me to the tent didn't give any hint, only growls to show their own rage.

By the time I was pushed past the tent flaps, my mind had conjured so many horrible possibilities of what could happen that I was clutching my tail so hard it hurt, trying to catch some last security to keep from bursting into tears.

The stoat warlord was facing away from me, his paws clasped behind his back. He stood there and my heart started to slow as the moments dragged on. My fear was giving way to curiosity of what was going to happen. As the fear-shrouded view melted a little, I saw that his paws were not clenched or showing any sign of anger and his tail revealed no signs of aggression.

Was it part of the punishment, that he torture me with waiting?

I almost jumped out of my skin when he spoke.

"It's Reuben, correct?" he said.

I confirmed; though many of my kit friends called me Ripclaw, that was the name my ma called me. I wondered how he knew.

"State your business."

Though I knew why I had been brought here, I wasn't sure of my business, so I said so.

Levit turned slowly and I found that there were no signs of rage on his face either. Still, my young weasel mind feared the worse, top of the list being that my tail would be chopped off any moment. I clutched the fuzzy appendage closer.

The warlord stepped up and knelt down before me, placing a paw on my shoulder. "Never have I seen my horde ready and at arms as fast as this morn." He stood and headed to his desk. "I admit, my first thought of what to do to the beast responsible was to release their entrails from their stomach and skin them as they writhed in pain." Levit had his famed knife in his paw, eyes closed with a grim smile, as if relishing the thought. "I'll have to yell at you later to have the horde know you're getting what you deserve and I'm sorry to say I will have to rough you up. You understand."

I did. If I came from the tent unscathed and anything less than downtrodden, questions would arise of Levit becoming soft, not giving justice where justice was due, even if it was just a weasel kit. I deserved it. I had brought this upon myself. I cursed myself on the name of Vulpuz under my breath. Still, this caught me off guard, this apology from the warlord.

"I want you to know, Reuben, that I am not angry; I know that you do not know of the realities of what you did. Goodbeasts are just what they sound like, 'goodbeasts' and yet, we are unsure if it shall always be that way." He must have noticed my confused face, because he continued, "We gain our power and supplies and way of life from what they gain. We set a raid upon them, they give a counteraction, a few of theirs lost, a few of our hordebeasts lost, and that is that. They fear us. That is what keeps them from taking more than what's deserved. When they stop fearing, that is what fear lies deep within every vermin's soul."

I still didn't understand but I nodded anyway.

The stoat pulled a thick leather strap from behind the desk and snapped it across the air. "Remember. This is for the horde."

I nodded.

Levit started walking back."I've heard from the seer that you are diligent in letters and words."

I nodded.

"She recommended you as a candidate for a clerk. Your situation requires further implications. You begin once your wounds heal enough for you to write."

The strap came down upon me.

I can only remember the first shearing bites of that leather strap; it was because of them that I remembered his words. It was because of them that I grew out of kithood. It was because of them that I survived.


	2. Part Two, Act One: The Mouse

**Part Two: The Mouse**

Becoming the warlord's clerk was the turning point of my life. From there, my view of the horde deepened with each document I was ordered to transcribe. My inconsistencies as a fighter were protected within the harbor of my position. My weapon was a quill and my battlefield was the parchment. I couldn't help but enjoy my work.

Change was the only constant of hordelife, as was leadership. A few seasons after hiring me as the horde's clerk, Levit started speaking of this principle of change, that anybeast who chose to ignore this reality would meet certain death. He also confided in me that being a leader was a very dangerous position, and only the most ruthless and wise could hold it for long, without succumbing to insanity. "Reuben, promise me that you never become a warlord. Power can be gained in any position you choose. Warlordship is overrated."

I noted this on the parchment I was writing.

I awoke the next morning to find something in my paw, a parchment wrapped around an iridescent green stone on a brass chain. The parchment was in Levit's notable slanted script. It told me of expectations and life and of things I didn't really understand. The words were written in an abstract prose that I never knew the warlord to use. He finished it with some words in a tongue that I could not decipher. I discovered soon after that Levit had left the camp. From then on, I kept the small roll of parchment at the bottom of my parchment bag and the necklace underneath a navy bandana I always wore. Whenever I was confused or afraid, I rubbed the stone. No matter how much I rubbed it, it always stayed cool. It seemed to radiate Levit's own cool confidence.

The words of the parchment haunted me, both those understood and those mysterious.

The opening lines echoed along the corridors of my consciousness, _The meaning of what I say here may not be heard until the right time…._

I was kept as a clerk for the numerous warlords that followed. Finding a new, indispensable leadership beast for any horde took a few tries. This was especially true for our horde, for beasts were separated into groups of varying opinion of what traits a proper leader should have.

It didn't really matter to me; I just took orders, transcribing whatever I was told to write. Looking back, I do not think I was a suitable beast for the job; my still inexperienced paws smudged ink along the page and my penmanship was small and clumsy. Still, it didn't matter. The beasts that came and went from the warlord position usually didn't know the mysteries of the written word, let alone letters. As the seasons slipped by and my penmanship, prose, and mind began to mature, I took advantage of this fact, for the good of the horde.

My habit started by changing a few words in a letter that ordered the surrender of a smaller horde we had just defeated in battle, cutting out mentions of us 'ripping out their gizzards' and inserting mentions of the advantages of our horde's size and strengths.

Soon, I was not strictly writing what the warlord said to write, but an outline of what he probably meant me to write. I began to love the power these words contained as they flowed upon the page and made results. My paws were worthless in battle but upon the parchment they were dangerous, the quill and ink capable enough to save or slaughter another beast's life.

In a horde however, nothing remains secret for long. Even though half the horde couldn't read, those that could became suspicious of the 'weekly notices' from the warlord, a task I took up without his knowledge. This inconsistency was noticed and accepted. A reputation grew when I wasn't watching, muted words as I entered the mess tent at meals, always an open place, usually a smile, sometimes some choice words. Mostly friendly gestures greeted me, though I was awkward to return the favor, my rhetoric and social skills detached by my thoughts of possible word uses and sentence structure.

The respect also came from how I dwelt with the ever-changing warlords. I had the capability to stand up in the storm of a tirade without flinching a whisker. I never told anybeast that it was because whenever I wrote, I faded away into the words and only heard the things meant to be written from the warlord's maw or that were implied. I learned to ferret out details of a beast and situation with only a glance. I relished details.

I will not deny that there were bribes from those who knew my power, and will admit I accepted those that suited the horde best.

I was in a position of great power and yet I refused to admit this to myself. I chose instead to focus on more lofty thoughts, beyond the realms of the horde, of life and death and love and hate. These were such deep issues that it also became a habit to sink into a dark depression that glazed over the events around me. So instead of thinking of these things, I wrote about them, and kept writing. I begin writing even when there was no order to do so. Between assassination orders and body count forms, I wrote of the immenseness of the sky and the forms of the clouds. While I composed a suitable suicide note for a stoat who was trying to get rid of his tentmate, I wrote of the questionable nature of the mess tent food. I couldn't help myself note the pattern as a bird flapped over the camp ever so gracefully and tumbled with an arrow through its chest ever so smooth, when a fight over woodpigeon leg broke out I couldn't help but remember the dialogue and actions. I became lost and immersed among details. I began to struggle to keep companions. A few grew used to my social detachment.

"You hold great power in your paws," one of my few friends, Hicker, a fox captain of the horde, noted one day. "You don't think like most of us. You are original; now, could you help me figure how to do away with those brutish ferret brothers at the edge of camp?"

I composed a fake order for them to investigate the nearby redstone quarry, knowing the rumors of snakes the place held, and handed the parchment over.

In the afterglow of this action, once Hicker had left, I paused, and my focus sank into the flicking lamp at my foldable writing desk. My paws rubbed along the oak wood, across the bumps and ink stains...

Who was I? What made me what I was? Why did I live? Did I choose my actions? Or was it fate?

Those were not questions to ask...yet.

The smell of conflict distracted me. Any experienced hordebeast can sense coming conflict, they can smell it, feel it, taste its tangy sap.

I blinked.

It was deep into night already, many hours since I had met with Hicker. My lamp was running out of oil, flickering, threatening to escape into nothing except a smoldering wick. For the first time in a long time, I saw my tent. I had been so long in my work and transferring of warlord power and general horde activity I didn't bother to pay attention to my own surroundings.

I was a weasel, sitting in a moderately sized tent, alone, no decoration or battle stories to flaunt, no chest of special belongings to reflect upon, no true friends to turn to, no life outside of the parchment. I knew only how to observe and react. I knew hordelife. The quill was in my paw.

I was a vermin.

That racial phrase finally caught me.

Vermin. Goodbeast. The lamp faded to black.

My mind faded to blankness.

I needed a walk.

I slipped out into the cool night, the mists of midnight making contact with my fur. I shivered, pulling my cloak closer around me. Moonbeams filled the camp, as did the snores of rodents and canids and muskelids alike, curled up under threadbare blankets, some tucked in so their tails provided warmth and pillowed their heads, except for rats, of course.

My mind was being pulled by invisible strings towards the topic of Goodbeasts. As I considered them, I found I didn't know much except from tales around the campfire as a kit and the occasional skirmish when we stole necessary supplies from any small society of moles or squirrels or mice or otherbeasts of their nature that lay in our path. I never saw them, I only knew what the reports told me and from the few carcasses and skins that were brought back as battle prizes.

I had to admit, the tail of the squirrel was quite an interesting specimen to observe. The warlord used it as a duster.

The only way I would be able to see a Goodbeast would be to accompany fellow hordebeasts on a skirmish... I was not suited for battle. If not for my writing, that would be a deep mark on me as a hordebeast.

The overwhelming sensation of being alone crept along my tail, spreading over my sable fur and sinking into my heart.

"Rueben?"

The whisper almost caused me to jump out of my skin, letting me escape from my thoughts. A weasel came out of the shadows; I couldn't remember his name and the night atmosphere didn't help me pick out any defining features. Still, he seemed to know me. "Rueben, could you take my watch for a bit?"

I was wary to agree.

"Please, my mate, Juniper, said she wanted something...personal, I won't be long. There's not many other times to have private, ya know. And I'm stuck on guard duty and it's medial but I can't just leave..."

I understood. Everybeast needed a little privacy with a mate now and then, I decided, and hordelife wasn't abundant with moments to have some. Against my inner voices, I agreed to keep watch. He quickly described where I had to pace and left, an anticipating grin pasted on his maw. I wished I could remember his name.

I was alone again, a spear now in my paws, and only my thoughts to accompany me once again. They were in mottled masses now, fragments of ideas that refused to form into coherence. I paced along the edge of the camp.

The woods seemed to grow gloomier with each step, and the night noises turned to an eerie flow of sounds.

I wished the weasel would come back soon.

I heard a crack from within the gloom of the forest. The spear fell from my nerveless paws. I was caught between picking the weapon back up and running back to my tent.

Another crack.

My breath caught.

Then the figure stumbled out of the foliage. I couldn't make out the creature; it wore a heavy cloak. The only thing I could tell for sure was he was injured. His movement was muted and I could hear him groaning.

Was this the conflict I sensed?

I walked up to the creature and knelt down beside him, placing a paw on his shoulder. I was shaking. "Are you alright?"

The creature whimpered.

I saw his leg; it was at an unnatural angle. It wasn't a leg I had seen before, either. In the moonlight, I could make out the features, its design. The cloak's hood fell.

I jumped back.

A mouse. A solid mouse. Definitely not a rat. I needed to do something. Raise the alarm. Get that weasel. Kill the mouse...

The memory of the false alarm came back. I didn't know who the weasel was or where his tent was, and even if I did, I would most likely be walking in on their privacy. Killing the mouse was a thought that I didn't even consider twice.

I was again caught, between running into the camp and...what?

The mouse was delirious, trying to get to his footpaws. With the leg as it was, the action was impossible. A horrible decision came to me as I saw the mouse struggling.

It was a Goodbeast. An example and live specimen of a Goodbeast.

The rest of the night slipped by without event. The weasel returned, looking highly satisfied.

"Thank you. That was worth it, beyond worth it. If we get a male kit, we'll name him after you," the weasel said, half in jest. "Anything stir?"

I shrugged and handed back the spear.


	3. Part Two, Act Two: The Mouse

I did not sleep that night. I paced my tent, throwing glances at my cot, where a still body lay in restless sleep. My whole body shook. This was against everything I knew and was taught. This is for research, I told myself. The argument fell flat in my mind. There was more to this that I didn't know, some reason that I couldn't translate into words.

I looked upon the mouse and wondered: what now?

The mouse awoke to find me rubbing dirt through his fur. When he saw my face, he jumped, trying to avoid my paws. The leg made him squeak in pain.

"My name is Rueben," I stated, mentally evaluating my progress on the mouse's appearance.

"Are you going to kill me?"

I almost smiled at the inquiry, then blinked when I found no jest in the mouse's expression.

"Of course not."

"What...happened? What are you doing? Where am I?"

I answered to the best of my abilities, in as calm and comforting a voice I could conjure. My rhetoric skills were rusty. Fear turned to wariness, his gaze darting about the room. I think the explanation that I was trying to make him look like a rat confused him. I waited a long moment for him to respond, until his eyes rolled up and he fainted dead away. I carefully placed my nose against his forehead; he felt warm, smelled feverish. He needed help.

Strangely enough, the stoat medic bought my story that he was my friend, an undersized and deformed rat, and set his leg and gave me some medicine without a moment's hesitation. He also offered some well-aged seaweed grog that he had filched from his last patient as reimbursement for writing a death notice to appease an old mate of his.

When the mouse awoke again, I found his name to be Artimus, but not much else. His wariness of me was evident in his movement, and the smell of fear still radiated from him.

I calmly explained the situation to him, that he wouldn't be able to leave until he was healed and that he would have to lay low so that no hordebeast would discover I was holding a Goodbeast right under their noses.

He didn't trust me. I knew by the way he flinched whenever I spoke, how he refused to look directly at me, that glimmer of hate when I caught a glance.

This did not perturb my curiosity. The healerbeast gave me confidence that I could pull this off, disillusioned me that this would be easy. I made the mistake of thinking he understood the situation.

Days passed and the mouse began to settle in and calm, daring to sleep during the night and to speak a few words about my tent, that it was "homey" and "surprisingly clean".

I grinned though gave not much more response to his comments, figuring my silence and friendly gestures would coax him out of his personal solitude. I tried not to stare too much and kept working on the assignments the warlord ordered, and some I decided he meant to send, for me to transcribe.

The warlord at the time, a brutish stoat with a ripe hygiene and expertise with cutlasses and wine, Gorbash the Slippery, had me meet him every dawn, to speak his mind more than it could afford or to rant his qualms a whisker's length from my maw and occasionally give meaningful orders on coming engagements. An occurrence when I had walked in on him with a vixen in an unorthodox position gave a good imprint of my impressions of his leadership. My hopes that his reign would be short had not been met for a full season.

Gorbash burst in upon the mouse and just after a call to the mess hall, a look of rage on his muzzle. I only had time to motion to the mouse to cover up with the blanket before the stoat had stalked over, his rank stench already filling the tent. "There is mutiny in this camp, Ripear!" he exclaimed, using his made-up title for me.

"Master Gorbash, I fail to see the evidence..."

"Don't contradict me! I know there's something apaw and I want to know what!"

The smell of wine on his breath explained everything. I sighed, "Oh, I know the beast you're talking about."

"Who! What beast dare defy me in front of my back?" He unsheathed his rusty cutlass and waved it above his head, slashing a hole in the tent canvas above. Gorbash caught sight of the mouse. "Is it him?" He started stalking towards the mouse, whose maw was agape at the sight of the disheveled and drooling stoat coming towards him.

"NO, I mean, no, it was Juger, the old seafox, he was conspiring."

Gorbash was momentarily distracted from the mouse. "I shall separate Juger's head from his shoulders..." he growled, in a most drunken manner.

"Sorry, but it seems he died of old age just last night." The excuse was weak. Intoxicated, Gorbash would believe that winged badgers were attacking.

"Oh." Gorbash stopped; looking blank, jaw moving as if he chewed this information for flavor, he said "I think this is time for a celebration. Come, rat, let us find some drink." Before I could object, in an alarming swiftness, Gorbash took the mouse by the paw and practically dragged him out of the tent.

The quill I had been using snapped in my paw. I cursed, something I only did for special occasions. With the remnants of the quill, I finished the last lines of the weapons inventory document I had been on, complete with an over-flourished 'Gorbash' at the end, placed everything away, then left the tent in search of my unwilling tentmate.

I didn't panic. This was serious. The paws of reality clawed at my mind. The stoat medic may have been a fluke. Gorbash was drunk off his tail. But an ill-disguised mouse brought among a horde of weathered vermin...

My thoughts dropped off there. Anything past that made my tail twitch. I shouldn't imagine this. I didn't even know what Goodbeasts were and I had let one loose into the camp. I still didn't panic as the sun stared to set and the shadows made everything indiscernible. My heart raced. I did not panic. I was at a loss of what to do. It was impossible to ask anybeast for help. I couldn't find any form of rhetoric to find the correct question to find the mouse. I wandered until dark fully fell, the mood shrouded in clouds.

Somehow I made it back to my tent. I did not panic.

I sobbed myself to sleep.

I awoke to a paw nudging my shoulder, my eyes opening to blurry brightness, and a voice: "Rueben, you weasel you, ya been holding back on us."

Grogginess rushed away as I tried to defend myself; I was interrupted by the voice and a paw on my back. "Oh, bad dream?"

I saw the ferret, Burg, standing there. Just past him, in casual horde clothes and an even more rattish appearance, was the mouse, balanced on two sticks. They appeared to be helping him stand with his broken leg. This confused me. Burg was talking. "...fun. Should have told us you had a visitor. Took a bit to crack his shell but he proved to be quite a spitfire. Showed him all the tricks and trades and...sorry we didn't get him back until now. Campfire discussions went so late he dozed off. Keep an eye on him, the ratty females were targeted on him, if you know wot I'm saying."

Burg, one of Gorbash's highest captains, was so animatedly talking about the mouse that I wasn't able to sneak a word edgewise, not that I would know what to say. This was beyond my perception. The mouse just stood aside, neutral and silent. After a few more explanations of the events of the previous day, Burg tipped his hat and then gave the mouse a hordebeast farewell, taking the mouse's right paw and pounding him good-naturedly on the back. "Don't be hiding from us anymore, eh Art?"

The mouse shook his head that he wouldn't.

He left.

The mouse and I stared at each other a moment.

The blood stopped rushing through my ears.

I stepped as if you go to my writing table.

"I was scared."

I paused at the mouse's statement.

"I was scared when that vermin with the sword took me. These are vermin...I...I don't understand."

All my fear and worry and nervousness drained from me and I let myself smile.

"Neither do I."

We talked. And talked. We talked day after day. I transcribed his words and I wrote down our conclusions and compared our observations. His name was Artimus, Art for short, he lived as a trader and spent most of his time pawning precious stones for rare seed which he planted in that family garden of his ("...most exquisite garden in all of Mossflower..."), and he collected souvenirs for his wife ("...mouse of hazelnut brown fur and rich, sparkling eyes..."). He had broken his leg falling into a ditch ("...know every root in Northwest Moss and my footpaw hits that one..."). He was young, about my age, good-humored, a little naive, and fiercely religious.

"Martin the Warrior is the Almighty."

"Why?"

"Because he is."

I didn't understand. I had heard legends of this Martin mouse in vermin lore. He sounded like a bloodthirsty beast that only wanted to spill the vermin blood. Why would he be the Almighty? I told Art this.

He suddenly showed interest in what I was writing all the time. I told him of my work as a clerk and occasionally writing my thoughts. He suggested writing things that were not true. That was lying. So I told him I had done that before in many of my writings.

"No, I mean stories," he insisted, "tales about beasts that don't exist but you make exist on the page..."

"Like drawings?"

"I mean, like writing about when beasts go on quests and...like legends."

"Like about Martin..."

Art quickly turned to other examples of writing stories. I soon understood that it was akin to the tales told around the campfire, except writing them down to be read.

Days still passed and Art's leg healed but he showed no signs of wanting to leave just yet. I found he had a talent of not talking about what he didn't want to talk about by just changing the topic. Art was interacting with the horde a bit more than I thought safe He started leaving without telling me where and refusing to talk about it when he returned. When a ratmaid entered my tent to inquire of Art's location, my suspicions were confirmed. The mouse was slipping deeper into hordelife with each passing day and he didn't want to leave. Our conversations were turning stilted.

I sensed conflict in my whiskers again.

Wariness was forming. When darkness fell, I stayed awake and still. Art soon slipped out of the tent. This time, I followed. I kept a trail on his still mousy tail as he slipped between tents and tippawed around campfire light, a destination most certainly on his mind, until he entered a small tent at the edge of the camp. From a distance, I paced around the tent in a wide circle. I could handle confrontations from other beasts. Within my memory I did not engage in them.

A noise penetrated from the tent.

I ripped the tent flap open before another blink of thought.

There was Art, in deep pleasure with the ratess who had inquired for him a few days ago. I was yelling at him, disorganized words of trust and friendship and danger.

The ratess clamped a paw over my muzzle. "Who do you think you are?"

"He has a mate."

"So?"

"This is not right."

A smile danced over the ratess's maw. "Oh yes, it is, beyond right..."

"Why don't you mind you own business," Art snapped.

"Rueben, let me teach your friend the wonders that can be accomplished under mouse skin covers."

Art and I blinked at the same time.

I commented, "Oh, that's one of those mouse skin covers from the Hiller mouseclan conflict a season back; I heard the fur is downy soft."

The ratess was not amused. "Yes, now leave. Art, where...where are you going?"

"Sorry, miss, I have some business to take care of," Art quickly explained, "May we carry on at a later night?"

The ratess flashed a poison look in my direction, and through clenched teeth responded, "Of course. I'm sure Rueben will accompany you back to your tent."

Art was shaking as we walked back to my tent. He murmured apologies and explanations and memories that I didn't bother to listen to. I didn't pity him as the tears flowed.

When we arrived at the tent, I told him that the horde would be moving on to our autumn camp, starting at dawn. Our path would bring us close to his home. I told him I would escort him there in a fortnight.

We talked little in that time. He refused to go with his horde friends; he didn't even rise from his cot during the day.

I felt guilty. I brought the mouse here. I let him get too comfortable. I didn't explain what vermin were.

When I started to gather a pack for him, the guilt was almost overwhelming in the dank silence of my tent and my occupant.

Night fell. He followed. We sneaked passed the night guard easily and slipped into the woods. Soon, he whispered that he recognized this part of this woods. He took the lead. Once we were among the foliage and not at any risk of being heard...

"I'm sorry."

The words came from both of us. We paused in step; he turned to me. "I let myself get carried away, I should have seen that you were my friend. I should have seen what I was getting into. I don't understand. I thought vermin were bad, and then I found them to be real beasts and then...then..."

"Art," I said, "We are not meant to understand. Goodbeasts live off the land, vermin live off of their lives. End of story." I rubbed him between the ears. He sighed.

We continued our trek. It was not long before the glow of candlelight flicked beyond the branches in front of us. It was only then that we heard the scream. Art gasped and ran ahead. I tried to keep up; I saw the candlelight grow brighter, a home hewn from an oak tree, Art getting to the door, another scream.I ran after him and...something hit the base of my skull with a sickening thwock. My body hit the grassy floor of the clearing. Four paws lifted me up. "Wot are you doing, Rueben?"

I didn't say anything; the pain in my skull throbbed.

"Answer me. This is a dangerous night to be sneaking out of camp."

"Is dis a Goodbeast's dwellin'?" another voice said.

"Looks like it...?"

Art appeared at the doorway, dim in the candlelight, out of breath. "Rueben, my wife...my wife..."

Two paws released me and stepped forward, my vision revealing him to be a stoat. "Dat's Art...a mouse."

"Interesting, Rueben…Art? " I was thrown to the ground once again, upon a large rock that contacted with my gut. I groaned. Through blurred vision I saw the stoat and ferret stalking towards Art, who just stood there, shocked, a silhouette frozen in the doorway.

The rock was gripped by my paws, I got to my footpaws, in a desperate stumble I came up behind the ferret, the rock coming up, and then down as hard as I could manage.

There was no crack, just a horrible and blunt impact of skull caving inwards.

I dropped onto the body and my paw fumbled for a weapon I hoped was on the belt.

The stoat was coming. I found the handle of a knife. It wouldn't release. The stoat was running upon me. I brought my footpaws up and caught him in mid-leap, and he continued, up and onward, head over tail, over me.

There was an estranged scream and then silence.

I struggled to turn over; I saw his body, at an awkward angle, a jagged stump of a tree protruding through his middle, the blood black in the candlelight. I turned to the ferret. I squinted past the shadows. Burg?

I threw up. Black engulfed me.

• • •  
"...I don't know. Was he going to hurt me? Was he? He was a vermin? What was he doing? Rueben was trying to save me. What happened? Why, Martin, why? I don't know what to think. Oh please, help me. I don't know..."

I heard these words as a caught on to the dangling lines of consciousness. It was still night. I was in a cot. My instincts were dazed. I didn't react to the mysterious face that appeared above me.

"Art, your friend is awake." The female hedgehog patted my head. "Never thought I'd see it."

I couldn't resist. "What?"

She bit her lip, "Just sayin', vermin are evil and...you are...nevermind."

She slipped away and out of the room before I could respond. Art was by my side a moment later. "Dawn is coming. Are you alright?"

Despite my head throbbing, I felt fine. There was no blood on my paws. They were still wet, cleaned. I wanted the blood to be there, to prove what had happened. I was glad it was not there, to leave the possibility of illusion.

Burg's face was still burned into my vision.

Art was speaking, babbling about me, about Burg, about him, about his wife. I couldn't translate the words.

Burg had been heading towards Art, walking, not saying anything, I hadn't seen his face, I didn't know his expression. I only had assumed. I had taken the rock in my paws and...

Art left my side and the room.

I wanted to ask him, what had he seen, what were the hints, had I done the right thing, what...the scream, what was the scream about, had Burg gotten here before, why...

"Rueben?"

All thought and function left me.

Tentatively, Art walked towards me, a small bundle in his arms. The bundle moved as he neared, and a small snout and two tiny paws were revealed, the eyes closed tight. The sight of a newborn mousebabe caused me to release my unwittingly held breath.

"Thank you, Rueben."

He held the babe towards me, I jerked back, I objected, I babbled.

"He was coming at me with a knife drawn, fire in his eyes. The difference is clear. There are lines not meant to be crossed, there are minds that cannot accept change. Vermin and Goodbeasts are the same, they do what they can to survive, by force and by peace. Who knows what draws vermin to hate Goodbeasts, whether it be jealousy or fear. Its presence cannot be denied."

I realized Art had been reading through my personal notes. I didn't note this infringement of privacy. His voice quoting my own words made it clearer.

"If you didn't do what you did, me, my wife, my babe…You are different," he whispered.

He placed the babe in my arms. I felt the warmth of the small body, its whiskers twitched, its paw clenched and unclenched. I let it grip my claw. The babe cooed.

Before that moment, joy was only a story.

My time was short, I needed to get back to the horde; since there was no sign of hordemembers coming upon Art's dwelling, it was decided there was no need to worry. Art and I shared a few short words, as did the midwife hedgehog, who gave me a quick lecture on proper grooming habits. Art's wife was in a deep sleep and Art advised against waking her, due to the fact he wasn't sure how her heart would take the jolt at the sight of a weasel in her homestead.

Outside, the bodies were already gone; Art insisted that they would receive a proper burial in his garden. I noted a tear as he mentioned Burg.

"Rueben...I can never..."

"Please. No more. Less to remember, less to miss."

Art bit his lip. "Yes, take this, and may Martin bless you."

He slipped metal item in my paw, and then turned away, into his home, back to his life. It was a paw ring of brass, an inscription on the inside, quote from Redwall

As I walked back in the quickly brightening morn, two things plagued me. How I would explain my absence to Gorbash? The second ponderance, what gender was the babe?

The first was a true fear, the other should have been petty, but the latter was the one that bothered me more. Had Art mentioned it when I wasn't listening? Was there anything I should have noticed? I stood in the middle of the woods, debating whether I should turn back and find out.

Between the deaths of two of my hordemates and the birth of a mousebabe I only knew for a few minutes. The warm thoughts of the cute creature canceled out the dark thoughts of murder.

Murder. I had already admitted what I had done was murder. I didn't mention it to Art. I didn't mention it aloud. I just admitted it in my mind. There was no proving it. But I knew.

But past death, there was birth.

Birth. The presentation of a new soul in this dark world, an event able to mute the screams of despair, a miracle that nobeast but the philosopher dared tried to explain. Birth in a horde was taken seriously. It was a time for joy. A time to celebrate an unscarred life, hope for the survival of the horde in the future.

How did Goodbeasts deal with death and birth?

Soon my question unasked to Art washed over me, echoing, taunting.

I stumbled, almost falling, through a thick part of foliage, out of the trees, and into madness.

That's all that could be said about the state of our horde: maddened screams, flailing arms as beasts ran past, torches burning to illuminate the still hazy morn. Images from the past rushed upon me. The panic that ensued of that Goodbeasts prank of my kithood. The situation took a moment to clarify as celebration and not panic.

As I soon discovered, Gorbash's drunken rant about somebeast planning to kill him wasn't as scoff-worthy as I had guessed. True, there were little details I had gathered to predict such an event earlier but I had passed it off as desperate hope.

At the display of a certain grisly item on the end of a pole being paraded around the camp, it seemed that Gorbash had lost his head over the circumstance of his death.

The disappearance of Burg and the ferret was never noticed and I never brought it up.

• • •  
**End of Part Two  
**


	4. Part Three, Act One: The Transition

Part Three, Act One: The New "Warlord"

The horde did not choose a leader right away like the other times. Lines of opinion separated the horde every which way and nobeast could settle on who was suited for the position of warlord. This wasn't to say candidates weren't few, though any that publicly stated their goal were quickly and conspicuously sent to the Dark Forest in varying amount of creative means.

I grew more interested in the affairs of fellow vermin in these events of debate and disrest. Partly because meeting Art had opened to me how little I knew about my own kind. It was a busy time for me as far as writing went also. Though there was no warlord, various factions in the horde insisted on using my talents to transcribe their terms and laws they wanted to instigate in the horde. I was glad to help and ignored their primitiveness. It seemed there was species bias going about, as I noted when writing something for a group of foxes about disposing of the horde's weasel population.

These were interesting times.

In the night, when I was alone in my tent, I wondered. My thoughts spun: of the events, of vermin, of Goodbeasts, of that mysterious message felt by Levit... These simple thoughts wove together and plagued my mind night after night, until I succumbed to the deep clutches of sleep.

I'm not good at transcribing dreams, but I know that one floated upon me.

It was gray. It was blue. It was yellow. It was nothingness slipping into oblivion. I heard voices. I saw faces. Words skipped along. The voice of Levit. The voice of Art. The voice of...

There was a third maw speaking, connected to a third face. It was a face I didn't recognize and yet knew perfectly. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't frowning either. He had a decidedly neutral expression as he stared as me. Levit and Art's faces faded and his clarified. He wasn't speaking anymore, only staring at me, as if in thought.

"I'm sorry."

These words startled me, especially coming from a mouse I thought was Martin the Warrior. He didn't look as scary as I thought he would. The sword didn't even make him that intimidating to me. He had great possibility to be intimating, the armor and all. He wasn't though.

Still, what he said, shook me. Why was he sorry?

Before I could ask, he gave a small smile.

"Go forth and write."

I awoke in a cold sweat, breathing hard, my paws clutched on my tail.

Write.

I was fumbling about for my lamp, quickly trying to light it.

Write.

Lamp lit, I scrambled for a quill and parchment. I ripped a bag out from under my cot, filled with my notes from Art's visit and the letter Levit had left me.

Write.

I wrote, as the mysterious voice of Martin had told me to. I wrote without need to stop and think though the night and into the morning rays. I spread the papers of the bag out on the table, the texts echoing as I glanced at them. This was a rush I had never felt before, a drive that I had lacked, a pure touch of inspiration, a word I had not fully understood until than.

Why listen a myth called Martin?

My quill paused. Dust floated in a ray of sunlight, noontide slipping in through a rip in my tent roof.

Why not?

I kept writing.

It wasn't until I stopped writing that I realized what I had been writing. My thoughts had intertwined into one document, one line of thought, one answer. I had found the difference between vermin and Goodbeast, I had found an end to the pain and bias, I had found a new way of living, I had found a method to bring vermin out of our own darkness.

Darkness was an illusion made by us, waiting to be broken by us.

"Rueben?"

Being broken from my detachment to reality, details rushed back to me. Night. Lamp flickering. A beast at the tent flap. Sounds of yelling and drunken song. General mayhem, the same that accompanied the death of Gorbash. The beast, a rat, come towards me, smiling. "Rueben, can't let you miss de fun /all/ da time. Know tis not yer cup of grog much de time. Dis is different. Com' on..." He took my paw.

The name came to me, Hock. Understanding did not. I tried to refuse.

"Oi insist, a new leader's been gotten."

I was suddenly intrigued, and inquired for more information.

As far as I could tell, it was no beast that I knew, a new arrival, and a beast whose tongue could "steal whiskers an' charm foxies an' convince al' madder of tings." I translated this as a talent in rhetoric. He used my distraction to get facts, to slip me out of my tent into the midst of cerebration. The sensation of being there was infectious to my soul and instincts. Still, I was uncomfortable in the company of all the beasts of my horde. I wished I could put aside the mysterious and vague qualms my mind conjured. I wanted to forget my thoughts, just for now.

A cask in my paws, and upended, sending its contents down my throat, solved that.

It burned down, it dulled. I blinked. Color blurred, cares melted. I blinked. Movement. I blinked. Echoes. Intoxication.

I blinked, the bright daylight blinding me, an awkward angle on my own cot, blankets binding me, a general stickiness all over my fur, physical reactions muted.

There were reasons I didn't drink, very good reasons. Many involving events I couldn't remember with beast I couldn't recall. One of the more memorable stories I was told was when I sang a rather grisly rendition of The Slaughter of the Crew of the Rusty Chain, which included extra verses that caused even me to be queasy hearing them relayed. Another was when a fox with a recently gouged eye came up to me and apologized for contradicting me in a drinking game.

I turned over in my cot and my arm came over something warm and furry. I lay there, arm draped over the thing, my groggy mind trying to piece this information together. I snuggled closer to the warm furriness, feeling comforted by it. My nose buried in the furriness, breathed in. It smelt of pine needles and burnt wood, a hint of roses just peaking through.

"Feeling a bit cuddly this morn, aren't we?"

I jumped back, as if the furriness was on fire, tumbling off the cot, in a spin of blankets, flailing about on the floor for a moment until I could get to my footpaws, a object in my paw to defend from the mysterious female voice.

My hazed vision could see a female weasel, half clothed, causally sitting on my cot, apparently ignoring my startled reaction to her presence, didn't react. There were various papers, my papers, in her paws, her attention fully and intimately upon them. I'd never seen a beast read like that, like reading was an enticing act. I shook my head, the room spun. I waved the object at her and inquired why she was here.

Rather, I tried to ask, it turned into a jumble of slurred and incomprehensible sounds, which she smiled at, though never pulling her attention from the parchment, "Please, Rueben, put down the spoon and calm down. You didn't do any undignified actions last night. In fact, you refused to, you were quite the gentlebeast, even though you were drunk off your tail. Kinda sweet actually..."

I blinked, and tried to ask again, thanking my fur for covering my blushing.

"Oh? I see," the female weasel finally looked at me, her golden hued eyes caused my heart to skip a beat, the spoon fell from my paw. "I was told you were the clerk last night, and I decided to see what sort of records you kept. I must say, these are the most extensive notes I have ever seen...so much detail and thought within them...particularly this document..."

I noticed it, it was the document I had just written, and I didn't even understand what it was about. I didn't understand what was going on. She was still speaking.

"...I must be off, this horde needs a lot of work. And, by the way, this paper, its very good, and...I would like to discuss it with you more, and I think that the horde should see it too. Spread it out. Consider that. I shall see you later today, transcribe the state of the species, possible bad meat, you know. Plus, reports every day at dawn, understood?"

The sudden commanding air in her voice near the end, caught me off guard, so I just saluted.

She came up, licked my cheek, and giggled, "You taste like raspberry cordial. I hope to become acquainted with you better, Rueben."

I opened my mouth.

"Vienna."

She swept out of the tent.

I touched where she had licked me. It was sticky. I repeated the name in a whisper.

I then went to carry out her orders, and also produce a copy of the document to post at the center of camp. Reading it over, I had doubts despite Vienna's approval. I couldn't imagine the average vermin taking this seriously. I had used the letter from Levit, on the difference between Goodbeasts and vermin, and the coming threat in the future. I had tied in Art's ideas of Goodbeast's success and way of life. It seemed, if it vermin could only find another source of survival besides revenging Goodbeast settlements, the source of the conflict between the two would be eventually naturalized with time. I didn't specifically note this in the paper, I only explained how it may be a significant factor in helping horde survival and the average beast's life. Of course, there was our species natures' to consider, still, I came to question more if the nature led us towards evil, or just what our inner morality thought as the only way to survive.

I struggled with this. If it was our inner moralities, and not instinct that led us towards a military lifestyle and 'evil' actions, could it be changed?

These are things the paper touched on, tip-pawing about the sensitive issues. I delayed in posting it up, despite Vienna's inquiries about it every day. I kept editing bits of it, rereading it late into the night, generally delaying the inevitable.

Vienna was distracting also, she held a certain enthusiasm for being warloard that I had never witnessed before. Even though I wasn't required, I made it a habit to stand by at her daily inspections. She knew the art of leadership very well and used every aspect in the purest sense.

I watched it in every inspection, her observations of every hordebeast was fair and through. They learned quickly to fear her paws. She needed no weapon to get fear.

She once had a stoat double her size on his haunches, watering eyes. He would have been groaning, if she hadn't had his tongue in her paw. "This is not a game. This is much more serious than that. This horde needs to see that. We are all beasts trying to survive and I'm bloody not going to let you waste time splitting fur like this bloody excuse for a stoat." She made speeches like this daily, but not the same one, always on an another topic, of words not commonly used in a vermin horde: loyalty, honor, teamwork, integrity. Even stranger, the way she presented them made everybeast understand and listen. Any grumble was halted by her paw. Vienna knew both the art of rhetoric, and that of discipline.

The hordebeasts trusted her, and didn't fear to present their problems and thoughts to her off the training ground. Vienna's demeanor in these discussions was smooth and friendly, everybeast treated in the same attentive way, no matter the triviality of the qualm.

This intrigued me more and more with each passing day of her leadership. My curiousity escaped my maw more than one time in speaking with her.

"Everything is owed to my father, down to any flicker of emotion from my whiskers."

"He must have been a great beast."

"No. Horrible leader. Horde ended up skinning him alive," she explained in air of indifference, "The opposite traits of his leadership are what I have learned."

I didn't understand.

"Leadership is made up certain parts: intelligence, trustworthiness, courage, sternness and...something else."

Something else? What could that be?

"One cannot be beyond the beasts they lead, one must reveal that they are also a beast, just like them, capable of both wisdom and folly. Show weakness, though not too much."

I wasn't sure I understood, but I held my tongue.

Skirmishes with Goodbeasts came, as normal, with more success and goods gained than the horde was used to. A slight lightness in the normally grim morale started to seep through the camp. A bit of a hop in the step as we traveled. I was feeling downtrodden, a darkness bothering me. I kept a slight stab with every small conflict against the Goodbeasts. It was, necessary, it had always been necessary, but since Art, especially since writing the paper, I worried.

Vienna had said she was interested in the paper. I could see in her face she enjoyed battle too, rattling off tactics and futures battle plans late into the night after a conflict.

"The problem with Goodbeasts, is that they think their charmed, untouchable, have some force on their side, stuck in a tried method of tactics. To engage them in prolonged battle would be unnecessary. Their short game is weak, they do not comprehend formation changes fast enough, they do not anticipate surprise. Yes, they have spirit. I can't overlook that. As for dealing with us before we already have caught our goal..." She laughed, a carefree laugh that told the pure joy she took in these thoughts. A moment later she would be somber, "We make a pyre to honor our fallen tomorrow."

The hordebeasts thought her some specter of the Dark Forest, beyond the laws of this world. Vienna's popularity was that of fear and sincere care. It was soon apparent that the hordebeast's would follow her to Hellgates if she willed it. It was unsettling to see such loyalty.

I thought her as a weaselmaid, struggling with internal conflicts.

Autumn came lopped upon us with showers of fiery leaves, as we trod South, towards our wintering location. Less than two seasons had passed since Vienna had become leader and the changes were undeniable. The horde was a beast by her lease, a trail of victories in our path, against all matter of Goodbeasts, our supplies and arsenal stocked to levels unimagined.

I watched Vienna. She was thinking, her captains gathered around her, all attired in their crimson red uniforms, discussion animatedly on all matters of topics. She did not speak. She listened. She separated the ideas, as they passed from maws, mulled them over.

She was not doing that now. I knew enough to read her expressions. Vienna was deep in thought. Interrupting them, she stated, "Good ideas are like wine, they need time to ferment and gain their full flavor. Wouldn't you agree, Rueben?"

I blinked. All the captains were turned towards me, confused, unsure why I had been mentioned.

I suddenly knew why she meant. I nodded.

She told them we were going to stop for the night, a special meeting tomorrow at dawn.

That night, she came to my tent. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. It was actually a tradition. Morning meeting were professional. Evening meetings meant she wanted a friend. Vienna had mentioned it before. Leaders rarely had real friends. She said she sensed a trait in me, that I didn't see labels upon any race or title, I only saw the beast and whatever nature they portrayed.

Maybe that was true, though I had my limitations.

"Rueben, is the paper completed?"

I opened my mouth to say no, to give another excuse. The backlash of her tone told me that wouldn't work.

"You may wonder, why I would build up an efficient military force out of this horde, and go forth and continue the traditional way of vermin. Why I continue to use primal methods to survive. That paper gives and alternate route."

She came forward, took my paws in her own, "I've had to kill many beasts, vermin and Goodbeasts. It is for the sake of survival. But you planned a seed in my mind, of what if. What if we no longer had to sacrifice souls in this manner? What if a change could be made?"

I didn't know what to say. I was breathing hard. Something didn't seem right here. There was nothing wrong here. Beyond something was wrong. Something was...

II'm sorry.../I

This was meant to happen. It was Fate leading me. I still...I wasn't...I wanted to.

"You need to plant the seed upon others," Vienna whispered, "Your idea has fermented enough."

"Yes."

"Rueben..."

I felt her breath on my fur, her muzzle snuggled by my neck. I wrapped my arms about her. There was nothing more to be said.

I discovered what Love was.

I posted the paper up in the morning.


	5. Part Three, Act Two: Salamandastron

Part Three: Act Two: Salamandastron

Every horde had its resources. When it was every horde for itself, these resources were that valuable. When in an intricate cycle of trade between other hordes, these resources became more prominent, causing the horde to focus more upon them, slowly changing their traditional methods.

Every horde needed something.

To the north, certain hordes possessed access to impressive mineral hotspots. Minerals used for weaponry, of which certain hordes to the east possessed a skilled in making. The lacked proper food supplies though.

Agriculture was not a common vermin excursion, so a few moon cycles the plan remained in transits. This problem was solved a by a mad rat's ramblings about a secret pine marten settlement to the south. It turns out there was a marten named Ashleg that created a whole society, apart from vermin and Goodbeasts alike. They were a farming community. Due to an excessive amount of inbreeding and isolation, once we found them, they were very ready to accept weapons for their overabundant food with little debate.

A long story short, the plan had spread more than I expected it to. I had underestimated both the reading skill and attention span of the average hordebeast. The contents of my paper spread from campfire to campfire, discussions started, debates set forth, madness reigned for periods, until, somehow, the logic of the document glimmered through.

I watched it unfold. I never had signed the document. It was anonymous. Beasts accepted that. The events that pulled it forward blurred. During it all, one thing was clear. That beautiful face that led what was to be called the Transition. Vienna used her arts of war on a new battleground, to develop and make this plan work. It was odd how much did change. Essentially, this was a not a change of our basic traditions, this was escaping dependence of Goodbeasts, letting go of a scavenging nature.

Vienna slept in my cot most nights, a flap above us open, the possibility to reflect on the stars.

"You're changing the world," Vienna said, snuggling closer to me her warmth an ever welcome comfort. I idly rubbed a paw between her ears, mumbling a vague response.

"Really, I mean it. This has grown beyond us, into a beast that lives and breaths on its own, willing the souls of vermin from the Northlands, to the Southern borders."

"Do vermin have souls?"

This startled Vienna, she cursed. My neck fur stood on edge. She was not angered by the question, just caught off guard. "Hellsgates, that's a strange question."

The question had haunted me for a long time, "I was once told about somebeast called Martin...by a...rat some back. He told me that Martin was Almighty, that he led souls on the right path."

Vienna murmured something under he breath, she was holding my tail now, as if clutching for steadiness, "I don't know. I don't know why we wouldn't have souls."

"If we were evil."

"Rueben," the grip tightened on my tail.

Silence, except for insects of summer playing a symphony and somebeast retching nearby their unfortunate encounter with alcohol.

I put the pieces together, "We must have souls. Without them, how could there be emotion, like hope, faith...love."

Vienna snuggled closer, "We will be passing near Salamandastron tomorrow."

I digessed this information. It was a change in our former path, which we were now using for a trade route. Our horde was one of those that transported goods.

"We'll be near the coast...where the sunset is stunning."

I closed my eyes, tried to imagine ourselves on the coast, together, watching.

"I want to be with you forever," I said.

"Tomorrow, we will be."

How had it happened? How had I let myself be drawn to her? Or was it the other way around? Somehow I know and didn't know how. I enjoyed the feel of her sable fur in my paws, the almost musical sound of her voice. I didn't need those reasons. I didn't need any reason.

I drifted into a deep sleep.

"I'm sorry."

The mouse in armor stood there, a somewhat sad expression on his face, though trying to force a smile. I wondered at his fearsome, yet comforting form.

Was I supposed to be scared of him? He was the symbol against vermin and everybeast that tarnished good.

Why was he apologizing?

He held out a paw to me.

The dream flickered away.

I awoke, breathing hard, morning rays flowing through the tent. Vienna was gone, most likely overseeing the morning drills. We would be on the move soon. I tried the push the images of the supposed Martin from my mind.

I would be lying if I didn't say the sight of the towering behemoth of the shore did flow a sense of awe over me. Many in the horde had not seen Salamandastron, a place filled with myth and built upon legend. Many horrible tales of bloodshed also followed the mountain's name, souls lost to the paws of the feared Badger Lords and his troops of regimental hares.

I was curious, I had seen neither badger nor hares in my life, not even the corpse or skin of one had been brought into our camp. Older horde members talked of them though, of the parlous ruthless and carefree dances of death the hares brought and of a time when they had come across a lame badger, he had killed a few dozen hordebeasts before he disappeared into woods. I was unsure whether to believe some of the tales, notable exaggerations were added with each retelling. I wrote a few with my own additions, practicing the art of the stories that Art had mentioned.

The mountain was impressive, no matter what was said. Along with the awe, a sense of wariness began to grow also. I had no reason worry really, the horde was not in its former military state, it was more subdued, our weapons more a formality than necessity. We had nothing to fear. We were not attacking the mountain, just passing by as we explored faster routes into the Southlands and open new, untapped realms of trade.

The wariness inside me refused to take these facts, and paced nervously within my stomach.

"Nervous?" Juno, a fox and one of Vienna's captain, fell in step next to me.

I admitted my worries.

"Pah. No need to worry mate, we be different now. We're not after their gold and treasure and mighty fortress. Don't need the things. Best as we are and nothing needs to be, we are New."

"New?"

"Aye. I, meself have that bloodlust for war, or rather, had it. Have no clue where the stuffs gone but it tisn't there in me bones as much as it used to."

A rat walking nearby caught wind of our conversation, and sidestepped his way next to us, "Yar jokin'. I would skin any Goodbeaster any day of de season, not a whisker twitch o' hesitate."

"Are you sure of that?" Juno shot back, "I've seen you laggin' yer paws a bit, taking relish in these peacible times, Killjoy"

"Yer be tolkin' of instinct though, and instinct never be smotted."

"True. This isn't intinct though. Intinct is supposed to help us survive, it kicks in during desperate situations, it is not nature."

The rat blinked, "Instinct and nature be differed?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying. We are a new type of beasts 'ere. New. The future is differed. No having to scrounge of bloody goodbeasts, no loosing our mates to conquest, nothing the same."

Killjoy looked uncomfortable under the fox's eyes, still he hissed, "But does it mean? I'd like to get my paws on the beastie that writed the thing and find out. We have a roigh to know."

"There's reasons for secreicy, wot do you think Ripclaw?"

I opened and closed my maw a few times. I was a horrible lyer and didn't trust my own words, my paw clenched and unclenched, trying to clutch onto a response. "Vienna needs to speak to you." A white stoat was at my side, Captain Whiteblood, saluting smartly.

"Pah Whitey, interuptin' a noice discussion," Juno muttered, "Does she need the 'hole slew?"

"Just wants Ripclaw, some writing matter, come."

He took me by the arm, dragging me away from Juno and Killjoy, to which I sent a weak wave, which they didn't see since they were right back into debate. It took me a moment to comprehend that Whiteblood was speaking, "Bloody mountain, no snow on it. Unnatural dark thing. Up north always have the white, keeps the beasts within asleep, as the legends say..." Whiteblood was a ermine recruit from our exploits to strike a deal with the Northern hordes, and he consistently fumed about myths and legends from the North. The one thing he didn't seem to miss was the cold. Any free time during the day he spent sunbathing, "...and I heard there is dangerous beasts within these walls, always awake."

I assured him it was nothing to worry about, his grim face didn't leave,

"Without the whitecap, there is no knowing what could happen. Beware, Ripclaw, be ready for anything, watch over our leader." At this, he winked, flashing a knowing smile, transferring to a whisper "I know aboot you two. Snoggling loik a couple o' lovestruck harpseals."

This transfer caught me off guard, and my tongue fumbled off words.

"Most the horde knows by now, just catch 'er properly, eh?"

I nodded, an embarrassed warmth coming over me at the thought that the horde was watching and knew, and another feeling, another type of warmth, a rushing warmth that bubbled up through my insides. By the time I was at Vienna' side, I was just barely suppressing an all out grin.

"Are you alright Rueben?" Vienna strode confidently at the front of the horde, looking out the side of her vision at me.

I nodded.

"I'm nervous Rueben. Tell me everything you know about Salamandastron."

I complided, telling her much of my knowledge on the topic, including a few odd rumors and bits of legend, the warmth distracting me a little.

She paused, brushed a bit of sand of her front, and looked in both directions, to the sea at our right, to the dunes at our left. "There's scouts watching."

This caused the warmth to subside, "Hares."

"Yes. I'm unsure if they know our current arrangement. What would you recommend?"

My mind debated this, and an option came to light, a letter, a message, a statement of nutrality. I'd always wanted the opportunity to write to an audience of goodbeasts, and now I had it, and to a Badgerlord at that. The thought of a massive badger's paws holding a parchment of my words intrigued me.

Vienna absently nodded her head, still scanning the dunes, "We'll camp her, not too close to that mountain. Something doesn't strike me right about that place."

"Glad we're not attacking it."

[perhaps cut this cheesy section]

"What worries me is that other hordes have attempted to." Vienna sighed.

I bit my lip, "Vienna."

Her face was lit perfectly by the late afternoon sun, her chestnut fur golden, her curves and whiskers perfect, her eyes...concerned, worried about her horde, her beasts, she cared so much for them.

I cared so much for her.

"Vienna."

There was a long pause, in which sounds of the waves and the horde of beasts behind us faded, and I felt only she and myself existed.

She kissed me, simple and quick and...perfect.

She laughed, the warmth radiating from the sound.

Love.

• • •

As the horde set up camp for the night, my quill flowed across the page, searching for the path of this message. One would think this wouldn't be any problem for a writer like myself. I had written countless documents of all sorts. There was still a blank area of my knowledge, only slightly appeased by the acquaintance of Artimus.

Writing to hordebeasts and writing to goodbeasts were completely different sides of the writing spectrum, and I wasn't even sure of that. Of course, in our military traditions we did not value knowledge. To gain attention in writing, precise and to the point writing was mandatory, or a hordebeast wouldn't pay attention. Abstract thought was not a common beast among our ranks.

Goodbeasts, as before, they were still a puzzle. I wrote with hares and a badger in mind, swerving towards the point. We were different, we meant them no harm, we were New. Writing the message was akin to deciphering the scrolls from the northern hordes, a process of translation. I loved the task, I loved using my weapon in different ways, defeating challenges the page presented.

I rolled it up just as Whiteblood was entering the tent, late afternoon was falling.

"Been told to deliver a message to the mountain."

"Alone?"

Whiteblood shrugged, "Aye, I'm one of the fastest beasts in the horde, and I want a closer look at the capless mountain. Not taking any weapons, just in case they're nervous beasties."

I pawed the paper over. When Whiteblood took it, I gripped at the page almost afraid to let it go.

• • •

I wasn't able to sleep during the night, the words I had written in the letter blurred and rearanged and corrections that could have been made appeared. The vague image of a badger came, some black spectral from my worth nightmares, haunting me, him reading the letter and ripping it apart with his jaw, then burning scraps with his fiery breath. I was on edge and skittish.

I heard voices. I stumbled thought the darkness to see the source. The camp was quiet, nobeast besides those of the night watch awake, the dirty light of morn creeping over the cloudy sky. The voices were coming from Vienna's tent, a stoat and weasel, and a creature I couldn't decipher standing between them. I tried to comprehend the sight. Long ears, lanky body structure, amazingly strong looking legs and exceptional footpaw size, overall a formidable beast by appearance. I stepped forward to investigate the situation. First the creature's ears rotated in my direction and then the face. A dark fire sparked in the expression, of a impulse nobeast could properly hide: hate. It faded a moment later, to suspicion and calculation. Still, the dark look didn't fully leave.

I forced a smile.

The dark look returned and deepened.

The weasel was saying something, Vienna responded, the hare was ushered into the tent. I struggled to start breathing normally again.

"Look at dis," the stoat was saying, "This is an impressive stick 'ere, eh?"

The stoat held out a long wooden pole with a dangerous blade at the end, "The harebeast didn't want to give it up. Wouldn't let 'im in if he wonted to give a message."

A message, a response, that was a hare. I mused at this new information.

"Has Whiteblood returned then?"

The stoat shrugged, "Nobeast been seen all noit 'cept the harebeast."

The hare came out of the tent, shot another look at me, and then turned away. The stoat and weasel scrambled to keep up with him. As I watched him leave, I realized how fearsome the beast really was, even unarmed, the hare could easily crush the body of beast with a kick of those footpaws combined with his muscled leg.

"Rueben," Vienna had snuck upon me during my distraction. She stood next to me, also watching the hare leave, "prepare to leave, we have been requested be audience in the mountain."

She returned to her tent before I could respond.

We left the camp before most the horde was awoke, just Vienna and myself. Her, dressed in her military best, her brass breastplate gleaming, her scarlet cape flowing behind her, her intricate leather belt held two silver handled knives, and a scabbard containing a broadsword with hilt fringed of gold. These weapons were gifts to her in her travels before our horde, kept to a meticulous state of being. Many a time when the horde still skirmished did I constantly noted her wiping the blood off her blades.

I felt underdressed and homely next to her, in my plain navy shirt and ink stained vest, my writing pouch at my side, a quill behind my ear. I felt even more wary as we neared the mountain on the dreary morning. The clouds above spoke of coming rain, foggy patches floated over the sand dunes. Vienna didn't speak and I knew better than to break the silence. She was calculating the situation.

The walk was further than it looked. I wanted to ask Vienna about Whiteblood. Perhaps he had entered the camp after we had left, it was easy to miss him on our route through the dunes.

The smell of the sea air was pleasant. I breathed deeply. We had arrived. We stood in the shadow of Salamandastron. We waited. I transferred weight from paw to paw. I desperately wanted to break the silence. I knew, however, if Vienna wanted anything said, she would say it.

"Who goes there?" a voice called out.

"Vienna, leader of the Ravenger horde, and my clerk, Rueben. Badgerlord Valor requested a meeting with me on the topic of my intentions being within proximity of his mountain."

"Noice big words for a vermin, wot, wot?"

"Yes, particularly large, like your ears, and unlike your respect for visitors."

I grinned at Vienna's word play. It was her rhetoric that had caused us to set forth the alliances over the seasons with minimal battle with the other hordes. Her wit was biting, yet fair. The unseen hare did not take the retort well, he was still cursing colorful expletives when a gruff voice interrupted him. "Ursper? What are you doing?"

There was silence, followed by a large face peering over from some unseen opening of the mountain. I couldn't help releasing an audible gasp. The first glace of the badger's head in the dim gray filtered sunlight caused my heart to quicken and soul to quaver. A few words passed between him and Vienna, his face disappeared. My jaw still hung limp. Vienna took care to push it close with her maw, "Keep notes Rueben, I'm doing this for you," she whispered.

She agreed to do this for my sake, then I realized. She knew my obsessions with new audiences and new experiences, the way I looked at a bird in flight or the motion of the tree in the wind. She watched me closely. She knew my darkest untold thoughts. She read me as well as I could read her.

The supposed rock face in front of us moved aside, revealing an entrance, and the first full view of the Badgerlord. The view amazed me, the pure size of this beast, the sever looks he used to calculate us. I would have quivered under the gaze, if I hadn't grown so used to Vienna's own calculating gaze. His fell short of that power. "Who are you again?" he asked, his voice deep and gruff, radiating power and strength.

"I'm Vienna, and this is my mate, Rueben."

I almost squeaked at that statement. I was lost in clouded thought, more words missed between the Badgerlord and Vienna, I followed close behind. Only as the sensation faded did I realize we were heading literally into the bowels of the mountain, under a thousand paws of rock and stone and myth and legend. We walked into a place where rarely a vermin had dwelled. As this novelty faded, I sensed the eyes, everywhere, the murmurs echoing. They were hares standing in every passage we passed, hares following behind. Vienna was in deep discussion with the badgerlord, not seeing this details. I only had these details to focus on. That look of hate the hare had stabbed my soul with this morning stalked my soul now, every pair of eyes taking a jab at me.

A younger hare, a hare kit it seemed, appeared at my side.

"Yer vermi?" he said, in a rather cute tone.

I nodded slowly.

"We kills vermi!" the leveret giggled and disappeared down a side corridor. The fur on my tail stood on end, chilled.

We entered a room that appeared to be the eating quarters, currently empty, food was set at the end of one of the exceptional long wooden tables, to which the badgerlord led us.

His sever look from before had melted to one of calculated bemusement, "...I am sincerely impressed, Vienna, in your words and candidness. Never would I have thought that..."

"Lord, shall we relieve its weapons?"

The badgerlord blinked slowly, and turned to the mustached hare that stood at his side. The hare had a spear in paw, bobbing, as if ready to lunge to attack at any time. The badger stratched his ear, "General Hobs, I think that unnecessary in this case. Besides, she has come this far..."

"For your safety, sir, I would advise in not trusting it."

The word 'it' was poisoned in the hare's dialogue. Vienna's paw played across the handles of her knives.

The badger slanted his eyes at the hare, who stopped bobbing, "By 'it', who do you mean. You are not referencing to Miss Vienna here, are you?" Whatever poison was on the hare's words, the badger sent in back in deadly form. Against nature and basic sensibility, it seemed that Vienna had won him over whole. I'd wished that I had been listening to their dialogue more instead of observing the eyes.

The hare notably twitched, but didn't back down, "Basic regimental code and law of Salamandastron state that no vermin should be allowed armed or unbound within the moun-"

"I /am/ the law," Badgerlord Valor growled.

Hares were at the entrance of the hall, staying in the shadows, their dark looks deepened. They were backing away.

"You are dismissed, Hobs."

The hare looked from the badger, to Vienna, to me, apparently shocked and flustered. He sent one last poisoned look at Vienna, then turned and left the room at a very fast walk, rigidly, holding in an inner-rage, from what I could tell.

"Now, let us eat some breakfast," Valor stated, presenting a grin. From the corner of my vision, I saw something, somebeast watching not a hare. When I turned, there was nothing, just a doorway to someplace I didn't know. I stared a moment, than decided it was nothing. For some reason, Artimus came to my mind. It seemed like so many seasons ago, and I realized it had been. I felt a twinge of memory and regret. I chewed on the breakfast without really tasting. I watched the conversation, the badgerlord appeared highly interested in our horde's current affairs and animatedly asked questions and responded. He had a flare to him that the hares seemed to lack, an acceptance to us. Maybe that was what had brought Art to mind. I found it intriguing his fur pattern, the black stripes over his eyes, his coarse white fur, the battle scars. I was particularly interested in his talks about searats.

"Scourges of the sea, bloodthirsty beasts that only care for themselves. They are the vermin I deal with. I seek a path to the sea to follow them. These are quiet times in this country. Somewhere on the seas and beyond, brave souls are needed."

"Beyond?" The thought of something beyond the sea never occurred to me. With my first view of the ocean, I surmised it to be neverending."

"Ah, the reserved writer has a tongue," Valor jested, "Beyond the sea, the legends say, far into the depths of the Western edges of the watery expanse, there is rumored to be lands only few from our shores have ever set eyes upon. Even most searats don't dare to go beyond what they know. There is said to be strange beasts and lands to the West, monsters and treasures both, a perfect place for the brave to explore." I noticed a far away look in his eyes as he said this, as if his mind now dwelled in those lands and viewed its existence.

"Are you going there?"

Valor seemed caught off guard for a moment, but only a moment, before he turned back to Vienna on another topic. It was not until late afternoon that we left the mountain. The absence of hares on the way out was notable, only a flew fleeting glowing orbs in the shadows were notable. The quiet was disheartening to me. Neither Valor or Vienna seemed to notice it.

As we walked back across the dunes, Vienna was obviously satisfied and pleasantly surprised by the experience. She couldn't stop commending all aspects of Valor. If he hadn't been a badger, I decided I would have been jealous by this point. The hares absence in the end was bothering me. I was debating if there was some inner meaning. Actually, after Valor had contradicted that hare General, the rest of the hare population had melted into the stones. It could only be assumed that they had lost interest...or something else. The chill in my tail gained from the hare kit's comment had not yet left me. I wanted to bring up my thoughts, and I knew Vienna would take it with open ears, but I held back from cracking her good mood.

As we entered the camp, we were essentially mobbed by the horde for information of all kinda, about the hares, about the badger, the treasure, the dragon, the flowing fires, the weapons, the ghosts. Vienna announced that I would answer all questions, shooting me a mischievous look. I sighed and let many paws lead me away for interrogation. Interrogation consisted of freshly cooked seabird and strong drink. I tried my best to withhold from the drinking part, but a few swigs made it into my system anyway. I can only assume I appeased the horde with my tales and descriptions of my quest into the bowels of the dark mountain fortress. I at least kept conscious thought until I hit my cot, where I promptly faded. I fell, slipped into the shadows, going beyond perception and reality.

I don't know what happened in that time. I'm not even sure if it was a dream, if I was asleep, I just know I was seated next to the great Badgerlord Valor.

i"So you agree, there is no need to let this change our plans."

"I think not."

"Something is bothering you."

"That weasel...at the back of my mind, some faded memory, like I knew him..."

"His name was Rueben, how would you know him?"

"Not sure, it's like I know him from...before I knew, nevermind. The ship is ready, I assume."

"Yes, tried and true by the sea otters up the shore..."

Vision slipped in and out of focus, I could see the figure Valor was speaking with, and yet I couldn't capture the image, like trying to see something in a fog, yet, not like that. I could just tell there was strength in the voice, not unlike that of the badger, yet it wasn't. Artimus came to mind. The image of Martin came over the figure.

Fading.

I was standing at a window, looking out, the gloomy day turning to a gloomy night, of no stars or moon, of a black sea fading into the distance. A group of hares. I felt the anger. Weapons in paw.

"...vermin."

"Once they set sail, we strike."

"...know better than to enter our mountain..."

"...evil..."

"...death follows them..."

"Trade? We're not Dibbuns..."

"...kill them..."

Fragments of dialogue flowed. Maws didn't move. Their thoughts. Hate.

Fading.

The armored mouse stood there.

"I'm sorry."

I opened my eyes to darkness. Night. I sat up. Vienna. I stumbled out of the tent, through the deep dark, slipping on the damp sand. I made it to her tent. Stopped.

A dying lantern, a shadow, Vienna on her cot, still, too still, the shadow's long ears turned, the head turned, eyes of hate glowed, a knife blade flashed.

The scene was frozen.

"No."

The shadow grinned.

"No."

Details fragmented.

Hare. Gray fur. Young. Hate.

Vienna.

Her fur. Neck. Black. Glisten.

Hare. Step forward.

Forward.

Impact.

The scene came back to reality.

"You're too late, wot, wot."

I don't know how to describe fear. Vermin do not feel fear. They react, they have wariness, there is no true fear in a vermin heart. We are taught this from birth.

Is it true?

I did not feel fear in that moment.

I felt hate. Blinding hate.

Instinct is beyond thought. It is pure action without knowledge. Ability beyond talent. The knife pressed to the hare's throat, my paws shaking. The hare's eyes still showed hate.

"Kill me. You think I care? I die, I go straight to the Dark Forest, led by the paws of legendary Badgerlords, those that ruled with an stone fist against vermin. Death by evil paws means honor."

"Evil? We are not evil."

"You are darkness. You are the scum of the land," the hare seemed speaking more to himself than to me, "She clouded our Lord, poisoned his thoughts, it is not natural. This is a trick."

"We've changed."

The hare paused, a grin slid over his features, hate and malice in the curve of his maw, "Vermin can /never/ change. You will all die. Die like the murders you are. Your blood will soak the earth, she's only the first, the first to fall..."

The hare's voice faded away. One word remained.

Vienna.

I saw her. The black stain. Her throat.

Vienna.

The knife I held, the wet blade.

Vienna.

The hare kept talking and talking and talking.

He seemed surprised when the blade slid across his throat, smoothly, ear to ear. He gurgled, his ears and whiskers twitched, his eyes bulged. I watched intently as his life flowed out of him, silently narrating his passing in my head, until he lay still. I carefully wiped the blade off on his vest and placed it in the small scabbard in his belt. I took the time to note the muscles and form of his legs, slowly growing stiff and cold. I rose. I breathed.

I turned to Vienna. She was so still, so beautiful, as if in sleep, only the black stain cracking the illusion. I lay next to her. I breathed. I choked on my breath. I racked with sobs. I never felt such pain, such deep pain into my soul.

The pyre was lit at midday, I remember no details. I remember I talked the horde down from attacking Salamadrastron. A ship had been seen by the watch in early evening, the Badgerlord had been on that ship. He had nothing to do with this. Vienna has always said siege was a last resort. There was no hope in attacking the mountain. We needed to carry on.

I couldn't carry on.

"Why not?" Vienna said. We stood watching the smoldering remains of the unknown hare's pyre. Her neck was bandaged, she was weak from loss of blood. The hare was young, inexperienced, he had wasted his life for nothing. I had wasted his life for nothing. I didn't see details when distracted. The pain felt didn't leave me. I didn't answer her question, thought I could make out the form of the hare's charred bones in the ashes. I outlined his skull. It would had been interesting to see those incisors at work during a meal. I wanted to get a closer look at it later.

"Rueben, I know that last night...what it looked like..." She was at a loss of words. Vienna was rarely at a loss of words. Never in my memory.

I hadn't told her of my vision. I hadn't told her of what the hare had said. She only knew of the attempt on her life. I had told her the hare was crazy. I didn't speak of the hate within the mountain. I kept the words shadowed, unreadable even her penetrating gaze.

"Whiteblood was in your tent," I murmured.

"Really, I..."

"Or at least his fur was. The hare was wearing it."

Vienna bit her lip, turned away, towards Salamandastron. She was hiding emotion. I could feel it anyway.

"Rueben, I love you."

She still looked to the mountain, dark and dreary under a gloomy sky. A mist was beginning to fall, drops of perspiration collecting upon her chestnut fur. I chose not to say anything. Words were not needed for everything. Silence told so much more. I took one of her tense paws in my own, and brought it to my nose. She smelled of blood, sweat and tears, with a ray of rose slipping underneath, just peaking through.

Love was beautiful, it cured all. But there was so much hate in this land to convolute it, to whisper love's demise, that I couldn't take it. I needed to escape, to be able to love and hope and dream. I needed know that the world was not so dark as I had witnessed. I knew in my mind that it was, my heart hoped otherwise.

"Will you return?"

I nodded.

Vienna turned to me, sad, trying to be strong, "I still don't know why."

I embraced her.

We stayed close that night, so close, as if one beast, of one body. I never wanted to let go.

I left the horde in the morning. North. Heading at a point that would avoid the Northern hordes and go beyond. It was autumn, not the best point to be heading in that direction.

My paw grows weary with transcribing these thoughts, trying to unlock memories shuffled away into my mind for countless seasons. I know not of my accuracy of the events. I know only what I recall, some title and maws missed along the way.

What happened in the North?

I cannot fully recall. There is a sea of Before and After that time when I was North. I cannot say. Dawn approaches, filtering in.

My paw aches. I wish I could remember, but I cannot do my experiences justice.

On Martin's soul, I hope I may return to his simple parchment page...

But there was the North...I wrote of it once...what happened there? There is only one other beast who would know. He who is lost in the realms of my past.

Rueben

Clerk of the Ravenger Horde


	6. Northern Interlude: A Raccoon's Letter

**Northern Interlude**

Without really noticing it, I have settled down. I never expected to, it wasn't one of my lifetime goals, to settle down. Somehow, it happened, and I couldn't be happier.

I don't like writing much. Drives me batty with what it involves, the spelling and format and stuff. I really can't get myself into it. I'm distracted too easily. It wastes time. I want to be moving about and doing stuff. I want to be out and about and accomplish some things. I am an adventuresome raccoon at heart.

I'm in a lull here, so I write, with a hopelessly cute fuzzy thing on my left leg.

I guess that's a bad way to describe offspring. He's one of my sons, after all. Yes, when I say I've settled down, I've settled down with a growing family. I couldn't help it, you know how love goes. It comes at you like drunk wolverine soaked with honey, as a great surprise.

Who is you? If I write this, is ought to be to somebeast, unless I plan to write it to myself, which I've found an endeavor that I don't want to take up. Creatures that write to themselves seem mentally unsound to me.

That's not fair, I guess, there is one creature that wrote to himself that was quite diligent (nice word, eh?) in knowledge. That was Rueben.

Before I forget, this is to you, Jacquas, though I'm unsure you'll ever read it. I think you will agree its best that this is focused to some audience. Rueben said that was very valuable to know when writing for somebeast else. Many bits of his advice and babblings have stuck with me from him actually. It's been many seasons since I've parted ways with that fellow. Well, Jaquas, I'm sure you don't know who I'm talking about, so I may as well explain. He was a beast worth knowing about, a reliable companion through varied trials and tribulations (cool work too, eh?). I shall try to write as best I can, though another fuzzy thing is now swinging on my tail. I think its the one called Juniper. No matter. It was very interesting events in those seasons and they ought to be told.

As I've always said, I'm a wandering soul. I'm not always a wise soul. This may have been why I found myself in a blinding snowstorm in the midst of the mountains. Winter was vicious in that area, blizzards were murder. Despite heavy coat and my own fur, the cold creeping in. Icies formed on every bit of exposed fur, my nose was too numb to even wiggle. I was regretting my scoffs at a hedgehog in Lily Valley when he tried to sell me a tail warmer. My tail haunted me now, its ring pattern hidden in white. I trudged forward without much choice, there was no apparent shelter and if I stopped...I didnt want to think what would happen if I stopped.

I lived off challengers, fed off danger and still I held that faint fear of going too far. What if I took on something I couldn't defeat? I feared visiting the Dark Forest with my seasons still young. I had surfed sanddune, jumped off a cliff with a piece of cloth (a parachute, the squirrel had called it), went deep sea fishing with a sea otter. Now I was about to be frozen in the middle of the mountains off a simple miscalculation, a solid raccoon statue until the spring thaw.

The thought caused me to smile despite it all. Then I heard something over the wind, a rumbling. A rumbling is not a good thing to heard in the mountains. I couldn't see far in the driving snows. The rumbling grew louder. I saw it, a wall of while coming through the flakes. One dreaded word.

I was lifted from my boots before I could think of it. My hat was ripped and I just barely kept a grip on my pack.

White. Just white.

Then black.

I couldn't move. I could barely think. I could barely breath.

It was still, deathly still.

Avalanche. The word finally came to me, delayed by its duration. It was official to me now. I was going to be visiting the Dark Forest soon. I sighed without success. This was a lot less exciting way than I had expected to go. I wasn't even skiing. I cursed on the misfortune in my mind. I couldn't move my maw enough to say it aloud.

Moments dragged and I debated when I would run out of breath. Whenever it happened, I imagined it would be slow and peaceful. That bored me. What sorta trip the Dark Forest would it be if it was just like going to sleep. I groggy sick feeling came over me.

I then felt something around my tail area, or rather, pulling very hard at my tail. The blackness pulled into whiteness, the whiteness pulled back into the snowstorm, and two exceptionally large paws that weren't my own rubbing snow off me. I wasn't sure how to react to this. The creature who the paws belonged to was cloaked in white clothes and his face was mostly hidden, My eyes were blurred. It didn't /feel/ that long under the snow, but it was now much darker and worse weather.

I was generally befuddled.

The creature motioned me to follow him. Lacking any better plan, I did, debating on what the creature was. It seemed large enough to be a wolverine,

Lacking any better ideas, I followed.

I soon found myself stepping out of the blizzard through a passage into a quite snug cavern. It was a startling change, my tail already thawing with the comfortable warmth filled the place. The beast led me further in and motioned me to enter a doorway to a room. In the room was a beast hunched over a roughly built table. A few bed were set against one wall, a lantern hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly. The beast nudged me forward and cleared his throat, "Poke him. He doesn't notice things when writing. I get dinner."

The voice was gruff, oddly comforting. I nodded, "Thanks...very much," I managed, and the beast departed.

When I poked the beast, there was no reaction, he just kept writing. I poked harder. No response. A little impatient, I stepped on his tail. The beast (a weasel) jumped up, looked at me, looked at my paws, then down at my tail, rubbing his chin. Without saying anything, he wrote something more on the parchment. Only then did he shook my presented paw.

"What matter of beast are you?" he stated.

I shrugged, noting that the creature happened to be a weasel. I'd never seen a weasel, but hedgehog guide had once shown me a picture of one. I had to admit, this weasel had a bit smaller and clearer teeth than the gnarled and oversized jaws of the interpretation. I carefully, staring in the weasel's eyes, so he wouldn't attack. He blinked, "Are you a strange badger of some sort?"

i shook my head, "Naw. I guess you 'aven't seen a raccoon before, eh? I'm one of the most handsome and fuzzy you'll ever meet." I decided the situation called for playing on his short knowledge of my species. The weasel seemed to take this statement seriously, and quickly jotting something more on his parchment.

I noticed the warm stickiness of ink on the paw I had shaken with. This was an interesting beast indeed. I soon learned that his name was Rueben and wasn't as dim a star flickered I would assume, him coming from the south and all. Still, he had a grim curve on his maw, that I couldn't break with any amount of jesting.

Rueben stared at me blankly no matter what bad pun I threw his way about "weaseling" me out of snacks or information. A gruff snickering behind made me almost jump out of my skin, it was our as of yet unnamed host, as towering as ever, even larger without his winter attire, "Never heard that one. Good. Dinner ready. Rueben. Dringer."

How did he know my name? I decided not to question and followed, the weasel at my side, appearly sneaking looks at my ringed tail every few moments. He was weasely, but not in the ways I would expect. Rueben had a curious and distracted like...well...a weasel, or at least like the old metaphors went.

The meal was modest but tasty, slurpable enough for extra helpings, of which there were plenty. Our host didn't eat, only watched, content with refilling our bowls with a kind grin. I couldn't figure the nature of a beast that randomly and conveniently dug me out of an avalanche. What sort of beast would live in this place? Well, the beast and this weasel, who I caught still shifting his gaze at me, our host too. It befuddled me (I got that word from Rueben later), I was too tired after almost being turned into a coonicle to wonder much more. It was a welcome event when the beast led us to a sleeping quarters. It held dozens of bed. From the expansive rooms and worn halls, I conclude that this place formerly held a society or something.

I fell asleep on this thought, drifting into an utter peace and darkness, as always, a dreamless sleep, unless interrupted. I was a light sleeper. I grew up in spying family, you know that. I grew up with sensitive ears and reflexes, The relaxes had grown lax, the wariness in sleep had not. I woke to growling. It was deep dark, not even a lantern produced light, i could sense the beast standing over me, his hot breath disturbing my whiskers. There was no speaking, only the growling, a wet feeling on my paw, he was linking it, I felt teeth.

Light came, there was Rueben beyond the beast, behind him, holding a lantern in one paw, something sticking out of his arm, a cask in his paws. Slowly, gradually, the weasel moved to besides the beast, who continued licking my paws, nipping, the growling never pausing. Tenseness could have been clawed by a kit. I didn't know what was going on. Rueben slipped the cask in front of the beast, it caught his attention, he sniffed at it. The beast took it in his paws, moved away, out of the room.

The thing sticking out of the weasel's arm dripped red. It was a tube. The red was blood.

"Bloodlust," Rueben said, as if he had been waiting for this moment, completely calm despite the event, "He can't help himself. He is honed to instinct far more than any normal beast. He needs flesh or at least its taste. Without it..." The weasel yanked the tube out, some blood flowed out, "Let me show you."

As if in a dream, I followed the weasel, he continued talking. He had not been here long. He too had been lost during a storm, only to be found by the unnamed beast. Rueben pitied the beast, but didn't underestimate him. "He's dangerous, but good...or at least good by my definition." He came to a door, "We can't bring this up with him, I'm not sure if he knows about it, I think he blocks it off from his memories somehow." The weasel pawed me the lantern, "I don't need to see it again."

I took the lantern, still in fog. The weasel seemed calmer now and yet still cryptic. He had told me much without telling me anything. There was a roundabout way in his talking, of talking about much...there was something missing however. I shifted my attention to the dark beyond the door. The light didn't cut into it much. A smell hit me, much like the wall of stench of a startled skunk (learned of that when a played a prank on ol' Mickers a few seasons before). I shot Rueben a glance. He stepped back, "Quick, he may wander after that cask is empty."

I stepped into the dark. As you would know, Jacqas, I do not have a strong stomach. If I had understood the words of the weasel, my stomach would have been more queasy. I know violence and I didn't like it. I barely could stand the crunch of a beetle trod upon. Bloody bones, skulls, rotting flesh, ever so nearly arranged, lined up, bloody.

Next I knew, the weasel was dragging me out, he was shushing. I couldn't breath again, at the sight of the carnage, my mind screamed and tried to get away from the grip. I fought. I wanted to get away. Other paws were on me. I was up. Against the wall.

"Relax."

Rueben was there, on the paw holding me, saying something.

"Relax."

I breathed.

"You can't stay here."

It was the beast, the lantern still produced a faint glow. His tone held no anger. It held compassion.

"I'm sorry. I can't have... I have Dark. Blindness. I don't like. I can't love. Darkness. Understand, Dringer?"

Such pain, innocence, with the blood dripping from his maw, black in the shadows, dripping.

I nodded.

By midday, the beast had packed us provisions and provided clothes of uncertain orgin. They appeared to have been recently cleaned. The weasel was still shaky. I kept writing in the pauses of activity. His gaze darted everywhere. I closely watched the beast, he was trying to smile everytime he noticed me doing so. I could see the glimmer in his eyes.

I can't say this all made sense to me, but its what happened. What it led to was more the point. I pitied the beast. I ignored the weasel. I didn't understand why he hadn't warned me. He stuck me as stuck up, like he was above telling me. I conjured up thoughts that it was malice when he stole looks at me.

I left the cave into the whiteness, fresh snow and blinding sun. i placed a pair of darkened glasses that the beast had given me. He said they would help. He had hugged me too, an interesting occurrence coming from such a huge and furry beast. I feared I would have my bones broken in the embrace.

I gave no thought of the weasel. Decided he was no beast worth bidding adieu. The choice, however, really didn't matter. I didn't know that not I /really/ wasn't saying good-bye.

I wasn't far from the cave when I noticed the crunching of snow behind me. It was Rueben, rubbing his paws nervously when I looked.

I sighed and asked what he wanted.

Sorry. I should have told you. I didn't know what he would...if he would let us...I really didn't...you're a very interesting creature."

I nodded, and turned to leave.

"Wait! What I mean to say, what I wanted to say, is thanks."

I nodded again, but wasn't able to turn to leave again without the next interruption.

"Can I go with you?"

I squinted at him, at him bite at his lip, one paw rubbing at a bandana at his next, the other, somthing gleamed. I looked closer. It was a paw ring, I caught a word. Martin. The word caused legends to rush upon me.

"You're from Mossflower?"

The weasel nodded.

"How'd you get that pawring?"

"Long story...literally," Rueben managed.

Ideas bobbed around in my mind. I don't know what drove me to it Jacqas, but I accepted the weasel's company. Of course, rumors of weasels usually ended with the ripping out of the throat but I figured the risk was worth it. The beast was not a experienced traveler, even worse social beast, and writing seemed to be his only strength, to the point of being an obsession.

That's how I got into the company of Rueben though, through that interaction with that unnamed beast, and through my own unpredictable wills. I would say I regretted it, but I didn't, not even the odd situations it brought with it. Rueben was not the sharpest rock of the bunch in traveling, a little think known as common sense in Random Trekking 101 eluded him sometime.

"Rueben, I don't care if it wanted to play," I said a few seasons later, in one of these situations, "When it looks like its alone, it_ isn't _alone."

"What is the beast by the way?"

"I almost got my mask ripped off along with the rest of my head!"

"Does it have name?"

"A bear, a BLOODY GRIZZLER. Got it?"

"Yes," Rueben wrote this on his ever present parchment, ignoring the growls and claws trying to dig out the epic stump we hid under.

"The North is not the South, matey," I noted for what seemed like the thousandth time.

"As I've noted."

I wondered if his friendship was worth the effort sometimes. He had his bright spots at least, he had a knack for tales, first from his own experiences, and then from his own designed characters and beasts and situations. It was then that he was in his element, and how we coaxed food from any beasts we ran across.

I still couldn't figure out the weasel. Despite his infamously optimistic nature in my presence, observing him when he didn't know I watched, I sensed a darkness and detachment. When I asked, he insisted on testing out a new tale on me. Such aversions causes my ringed tail to fuzz up. I figured it was his stress relief, like mine was searching for crayfish in a brook.

By my own surprise, Rueben brought it up one day, " I can't tell you some things, Dringer. Not because I don't trust you, because I don't want to hurt you. I wonder, what is within a beast, my own kind..." seemed to consider his own words, "Am I evil?

I sputted on my drink at the question. Good and evil. Of course, it was a reoccurring topic in his tales of fictional beast and usually an idle ponder as we traveled. I took it in stride with my morals. Ah, an answer presented itself. "It depends on a beast's morals."

"What are morals?" he asked.

To bide time, I bit at my claws as if they were causing me pain. He waited patiently. I made sounds of consideration to distract him, before attempting to bring up the succulence of crickets.

"Dringer? Your tail is twitching."

All his watching of my ringed tail had served him well. Before him, I had not realized how much it revealed. He could read me much better than I could read him. I was at a disadvantage. I sighed, "I really don't know. Though I do remember the words of a river otter I once knew named Clive. 'Dringe,' he said, 'Instincts are not as random as they appear. Whomever says they live off instinct is lying to ya. There is something deeper within that even leads instincts and forms the boundaries of good and bad. Good and bad, right and wrong, are beasts opinions and there is no set lines.'"

We walked in silence for a long time. I began to note the surroundings. We were far to the Northwest, a land I had heard many rumors of disappearances and strange creatures. I was from the Northeast sectors, near the deep forests and tundra regions. Beasts were scattered in these lands and solid paths were hard to come by. We followed the stars even if we didn't know exactly where we were. There were flowers trees here I'd never seen before, there smells pleasing as they flowed into my nose.

It was very quiet.

To say the least, I was getting nervous.

Rueben's voice made me jump. "I'm supposed to be evil."

I blinked, but didn't respond.

"My kind are meant to be evil, where I live. I don't know why. I guess I am evil by their morals."

"What about yours?"

The voice was not mine. I spun to find a rabbit standing next to me, a hare actually. Rueben and me stared. The hare smiled at us, "Hello. May I kidnap you?"

It was a female, young, a certain flare in her eyes, her fur completely white.

"So, may I?" she asked again.

I coughed, "I don't think so."

"Really?"

"No, I think we're fine for now."

Jacqas, this conversation went like this for a while with varying words replacing the word 'kidnap', including murder, maim, skin, dance, date, and initiate. For the sake of appeasing her, I agreed to be initiated, though Rueben had caved at dancing.

When I agreed, she let out a horrible screech, soon after led by dozens of spears surrounding Rueben and myself, poking if we had any tempting movements to stratch our noses. They were all hares, all of white fur like the hare lass, a bit more armed and angry looking though. From their heated words, I gathered that they thought we had kidnapped the Misage's daughter. Who the Misage was eluded me.

"This is very interesting," Rueben noted. I would have bopped him between the ears if I would have been poked with a metal point for the action.

"Maybe you should have danced with her."

I sighed. Soon enough, there was a whooping sound and soon after, the spears directed up at attention. A aisle formed between hares to present entrance for another hare, one of white shimmering robes, he had a certain skip in his step. The word 'leader' came to mind. I rubbed my temples.

Jacquas, there began our association with the snowshoe hares.


End file.
